'Music and the Natural World'

Tomorrow my Fall semester class at The College of New Jersey begins. I'm teaching a Freshman Seminar titled "Music and the Natural World."

The idea for this course came out of a discussion on the Society of Music Theory email list about five years ago. Some on the list were interested in whether a music theory course could somehow work in ideas related to sustainability -- a hot topic at the time, as the academic world was reacting to mounting pressures to address climate change and environmental issues. The thought was that sustainability was one of the most important issues of our age and we had a responsibility as educators to reflect that concern to our students.

I was among those theory teachers who said, No, it can't be done. The theory curriculum is already demanding for the students and time allowed for that curriculum is far too brief. Moreover, the link between theory and sustainability is flimsy at best. We can recycle paper. But that's about it. In one way or another, most of theorists agreed with that assessment.

Out of that discussion, however, the idea arose that a separate course could be designed that focus on repertoire and environment. Composers throughout history have been inspired in many ways by the beauty of the natural landscape and composers today are examining that relationship in everything from traditional "musical landscape" scores to computer models of natural systems and chaos theory.

My thought was that, in a framework like that, students would be naturally sensitized to issues of sustainability and human responsibility for our changing environment. Putting it in a freshman seminar seemed perfect, as it allowed for a more broad-ranging discussion.

TCNJ's freshman seminars are intended give students an introduction to scholarship by presenting them with a subject of study, much like a graduate seminar, and then guide them through the process of research and scholarly discussion. The first two years in college are generally spent on required courses, with little other opportunity for this kind of personal scholarship.

By now, I've taught this particular course three semesters and I grow from the experience each time. We gambol around music history and the musicological spectrum, touching on other disciplines like philosophy, physics, sociology and biology. Since the course is open to students of any major, there are a jungle of approaches popping up in each classroom. Each voice adds to bigger picture.

We will start with an nature-themed trip through the classical repertoire, introducing some writings of Goethe and others along the way, and then head off into ethnomusicology and topics in semiotics before getting into soundscapes, musique concrete and John Cage. And we wind up with a look into the not-so-distant future of virtual environments -- what of nature, or of ourselves, do we take with us into the wholly digital city?

It's a mash-up dance, a rough-and-tumble idea playground.

So here we go. I'm excited. It's going to be a great semester.

--C.
www.theandofone.blogspot.com
On Facebook
Follow @CarltonOne

Adjunct Professor of Music

Many of the readers of this blog do at least some adjunct or part-time teaching work. Some of you, like me, get most of our income from teaching. I highly recommend you read this article in the American Federation of Teachers publication On Campus. This relatively short article cites research to be published later this year in American Behavioral Scientist on the practices surrounding adjunct teaching in Pennsylvania.

Nothing here will come as a shock to those of us who are teaching college presently, except perhaps that we in New Jersey are not alone in being exploited, asked to subsist on poverty-level pay and still deliver the same quality of educational experience as our full-time colleagues. But it is important that the issue is labeled, scrutinized and discussed.

For those of you who do not know, the term "adjunct" means a teacher who is hired on a per-class basis. Since these workers are not full-time employees they are often not entitled to any benefits and are paid less for the same work as a salaried professor. They are restricted from teaching more than a certain number of hours at any one institution and so have to cobble together a living between a number of institutions, driving hours each week and overscheduling themselves to compensate for lower pay. Of necessity, this results in weaker class preparation that could impact students' learning. This problem is often made worse by a lack of out-of-class support for the students in classes taught by adjuncts. The adjuncts don't have a presence on campus outside of class and aren't paid to be there, so the students often don't have the opportunity for one-on-one meetings.

Perhaps the most frustrating part of ths second-class-professor syndrome is that most full-time faculty seem aware of the problem, even sympathetic, yet silent on the issue, uncertain of any avenue through which to convey their concerns to college administrators. This underscores the degree to which many professionals have accepted this intellectually and morally indefensible practice, even as more full-time lines are discontinued in favor of part-time and adjunct staff.

As the AFT article implies, the problem is particularly severe in community colleges. These colleges simply would not exist in their present form without relying heavily on highly qualified adjuncts--many of whom hold doctorate degrees and are successful in their area of research--who are paid ridiculously low wages. The assumption is that the community college students will accept a backdoor education and a large pool of committed educators will continue to be available, ready to work for peanuts.

In short, the system is broken and needs to be repaired. A lot of committed professionals and eager, dedicated students are suffering under the current conditions.

--C.
www.theandofone.blogspot.com
On Facebook

Springsteen Class

I was MIA in this blog for most of October as a result of a convergence of personal and professional demands. Most lovely among these was substituting as instructor for two weeks in a freshman seminar at The College of New Jersey. I already am teaching one freshman seminar class (on the topic of "Music and the Natural World"). Here though, I was asked to fill in for two sections of the course, "The Lyrics of Bruce Springsteen as Literature." I live in Asbury Park and have followed Springsteen's progress since "Born to Run" hit the charts while I was in high school, so this assignment was a natural fit.

Freshman seminars are designed to introduce students to the work involved in real scholarship at more advanced levels. Ideally, they would pick something that interests them and be guided through detailed study, modeling the experience of upper-level undergraduate or graduate school courses. The reality falls somewhat short of that: The students are forced to choose from a list of predetermined courses and asked to balance their course selections across from categories designed to cover the whole of the liberal arts. Then they have to shoehorn those choices into a daily schedule. As a result, every class will have some kids left wondering why they are there. But still, the goal of the program is to engage the freshman in individualized research--very different from my first years in college.

Considering Springsteen's lyrics as literature isn't a stretch. We've seen presidents, politicians, authors and commentators quoting from his songs. Albums recorded in the 1970s and '80s still have currency, finding new audiences and influencing young musicians. Subjecting those lyrics to a semester-long course of study might seem over the top--until you actually start the research. Then it becomes clear there's a lot to say. So much has been written about Springsteen's music--thousands of books and articles--but much more could be.

In the classes I taught, for instance, we spent a good bit of time on the political ramifications of the song "Born in the U.S.A." (1984) and how the deliberately patriotic album cover and the upbeat, anthem-like music seemed to contradict the lyrics' portrait of a beat-down vet. That contrast alone is worth a ream of paper at least (especially since Springsteen recorded an earlier, much more subdued version of the song). We noted the way the words succinctly capture complex social issues surrounding the Vietnam war, ("I had a brother at Khe Sahn, fighting off the Viet Cong/They're still there; he's all gone"). The narrator is not Springsteen himself, but one of the many working class joes that populate his songs. That character is celebrating his rough birthright with all the joyous fervor of a good barroom brawl. He challenges us to accept that this is his America, too.

Is it OK to celebrate failure? Is it patriotism to write about things as they are? Great questions for freshmen to try to answer.

Every album since the 1975 "Born to Run" is full of similar, if less obvious, conflicts--challenges to societal norms, provocative blends of good and evil within a single character, jabs at political issues, difficult personal relationships worked out through characters and rhymes. You don't have to be a die-hard fan to mine the rewards of these stories.

But for me the best part of teaching these classes was not Bruce. It was, as always, simply being able to talk to the freshmen, to participate in the flow of ideas and insights that are shaping who they will become. Open faced and newly vulnerable to the robo-assembly line challenges slamming them every second, they give me a reason to believe in a future less horrorshow; a hope that somehow together, taking a careful look at meanings--almost regardless of where we find them--we can help put humanity to rights.

--C.
www.theandofone.blogspot.com
On Facebook

Sustainability

Heading out this morning to a meeting with the Rider Sustainability Across Curriculum group at the Lawrenceville campus. Last fall I started teaching a Freshman Seminar at The College of New Jersey then titled Music and Environment (now Music and the Natural World). The idea was to increase sensitivity to environmental concerns by showing the intricate relationship of this aspect of human culture to our natural surroundings.

The idea for the course came out directly out of a discussion on sustainability and music theory curriculum on a Society of Music Theory list. The very beginnings of this discussion on SMT raised the hackles of many theorists and I certainly don't blame them.

As all music majors know, music theory courses are routinely jammed with information. They are notorious for shoe-horning in every possible technique of historical Western music theory plus a handful of ethnomusicological bric-a-brac. On top of that they also usually entail some ear-training, sight-singing and often a piano keyboard mechanics component. While they may have become more condensed, music theory has been taught more or less the same way for hundreds of years.

So the very thought that you could rejigger the music theory curriculum to fit into an all-of-a-sudden academic trend like sustainability just seemed a bit outrageous. Further, the topic itself seems pretty removed from any direct connection with sustainability--what is there to be sustained in music? How does music theory affect the physical environment and how can recycling or solar energy improve it?

I point all this out because the discussion actually did become useful, once we began to brainstorm and talk about intersections of environmentalism and music that interested us. And the course, so far, has turned out to be one of the most exciting that I've taught.

--C.
http://www.theandofone.blogspot.com